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Editorial Note: Originally published at The Loftus Party on December 29, 2016.Superhuman abilities are emerging, and they will become more pronounced and widespread in the future. Advances in research and development are such that civilian and military leaders are now discussing how they will change the world. One of the more interesting aspects to explore is how they will alter national security. And I spoke with intelligence veteran J. F. Cicci about how superhuman abilities will affect the armed forces and wars of the future.

J. F. Cicci (pronounced: chi-chi) is a fellow Loftus Party contributor. But she also previously worked in military intelligence. “I served in the U.S. Army Reserve as an all-source military intelligence (MI) officer from 2009-2013,” she said. She also worked as a defense contractor for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) from 2012-2013, first as a counterintelligence (CI) assistant and then as a CI analyst. She held a top secret security clearance the entire …

Editorial Note: Originally published at BarbWire on February 08, 2016.

Superhumans might seem like pure fantasy but they are not. The armed forces of the world are actively working on creating them.
Media have focused attention on how the U.S. Department of Defense is attempting to create a so-called Iron Man suit. But there is more going on than just this. There are already talks about military forces (not necessarily American ones) manipulating DNA and genetic structures to create enhanced humans or superhumans. I wrote about this in the summer of last year.
So what’s the latest that is happening with research and development of superhuman technologies and capabilities? I contacted someone who is interested in future trends and asked him for his thoughts on it.
Zoltan Istvan is a transhumanist and the author of philosophical novel, The Transhumanist Wager. He also is a candidate in the 2016 U.S. Presidential race. Mr. Istvan believes in using radical science and technology to improv…

U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff General David Goldfein appeared at a United Kingdom military conference and spoke about how armed forces might one day transport troops through space, according to a July 13 article in The Daily Mail. This speculation is similar to how Adam White, the protagonist of Mortal Gods: “HVT,” deploys from space to an earthbound objective during a key moment in the short story.

The Daily Mail said that Gen. Goldfein was talking at “an air power conference in London” when he addressed the need for innovation. And after speaking about how Virgin Galactic is working on making “intercontinental space travel a reality” for commercial passengers he said, “The question for us is what does that mean if I take seven special operators, put them on this and then can get to any place on the planet in less than an hour?” Mortal Gods: “HVT,” a short story published in seven serial installments here at Liberate Liberty, includes an important plot point where the U.S. government …

Superhuman abilities are associated with comic book superheroes and fantasy, but they likely will become a reality and military-sponsored workshops even foresee them possibly being on the battlefield of the future.

Superheroes fill the big screen and television. Many people like them but others may be tired of them and think they are “childish” or “pure fantasy.” And while superheroes may indeed be both of these, superhumans certainly are not. They might one day become a reality and the U.S. Department of Defense is thinking about how they could affect warfare.
Many news outlets have reported on the U.S. Department of Defense developing a so-called Iron Man-type suit. But the DOD is also aware the future will see advancements beyond this; advancements that might eventually include biological superhuman abilities. Defense One reported on July 22 that elements of the DOD, national security professionals, scientists and…

Superhuman characters are part of stories I’ve already published and part of stories yet to come. And some of these characters can fly without any technological assistance. The real-world competition of indoor skydancing provides a partial example of how you should visualize such characters while they fly.

Writing about superhuman flight is often simple enough. But how do you visualize what that looks like when you read it? Does what you see look anything like how filmmakers portray it? If it does, that’s sometimes okay but at other times not. Here’s why.
Depicting superhuman flight at times fails when visually translated. Failure in movies and TV often occurs because actors don’t know how to hold and move their bodies when attempting to portray a flying human being. They often come off as uncomfortable, awkward, or unable to hide that wires or other technology is helping them to mimic flight.
Hence, a superhuman character’s carriage while in flight is critical to making it seem both…